After the Gulf
War, the United Nations imposed strict economic sanctions on
Iraq that critics charge have led to the deaths of more than
a million people -- the majority of them children. Saddam Hussein
claims the deaths are in excess of one and a half million. Recent
reports in leading newspapers and research studies in medical
journals now suggest those numbers may be exaggerated. Still,
a heated debate continues over the impact of the sanctions and
over whether the United Nations and in particular the United
States are responsible or whether Saddam himself has blocked
humanitarian aid to further his own propaganda war.

As early as 1991, the U.N. Security Council acknowledged that
sanctions were causing the Iraqi people undeniable suffering
and proposed an oil-for-food humanitarian program to alleviate
malnutrition and disease. The plan allowed Iraq limited sales
of oil with revenues to be placed in a U.N.-controlled account
for the purchase of approved food and medical supplies. Saddam
rejected this program as an infringement of his sovereignty.
After years of negotiations, Baghdad finally agreed to the program
in 1996 with the first deliveries of aid arriving in 1997. Each
year since then the Security Council has increased the Oil-for-Food
program, and according to Secretary General Kofi Annan, Iraq
now has sufficient resources to alleviate life-threatening disease
and hunger.

"Impact
of Sanctions," U.S. Department of State
According to the U.S. State Department, "Sanctions are not intended
to harm the people of Iraq. That is why the sanctions regime
has always specifically exempted food and medicine." On this
Web page, you'll find links to more information on the Iraq
Oil-for-Food program, the U.S. policy on the enforcement of
the sanctions and the alleged role oil smuggling has played
in getting around the economic impact of the sanctions.

Permanent
Mission of Iraq to the United Nations, New York
At Iraq's U.N. mission Web site, information about the devastating
effect sanctions are having upon Iraqi society is presented
on a black background, "in mourning of the Iraqi children who
are dying on a daily basis due to the continued imposition of
the unjust sanctions on the people of Iraq." According to the
Web site, more than 84,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5
died in 2001 -- alleged casualties of the sanctions. Actual
causes of death are not listed.

Voices
in the Wilderness
A joint American-British Chicago-based organization, Voices
in the Wilderness has been campaigning since 1996 to end the
U.N. sanctions levied after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Fifty
delegations from Voices in the Wilderness have traveled to Iraq,
and recently the organization has been "maintaining a constant
presence in Iraq to stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people."
At one recent demonstration, co-founder Kathy Kelly and 11 other
members of the organization protested outside the U.N. building
in Baghdad and made reference to the deaths of "hundreds of
thousands" of Iraqi children as a result of the sanctions.

Iraq Action Coalition
An online media resource center for groups and activists, the
Iraq Action Coalition features a "Facts & Myths" page that contains
statistics, culled from institutions such as UNICEF and the
World Health Organization, about the impact of sanctions on
disease and malnutrition in Iraq, particularly among children.

United
Nations' Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP)
Find out more about the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program,
authorized under U.N. Security Council Resolution 986, which
Iraq accepted in 1996. The program allows Iraq to use roughly
70 percent of its oil revenues to pay for humanitarian needs
such as food and medicine, while also requiring Iraq to set
aside a portion of the revenues for compensation to the United
Nations. According to the OIP, "Since the first food arrived
in March 1997, foodstuffs worth over $10 billion and health
supplies worth over $1.9 billion have been delivered to Iraq"
under the program.

ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS

"A
Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions," David Cortright
Much mention has been made of the impact of the sanctions and
the suffering they have wrought upon the Iraqi people, particularly
upon children, a million of whom have become casualties of the
sanctions, according to Saddam Hussein. Even illustrious medical
journals like The Lancet have carried scholarly reports of deaths
of Iraqi children attributed to the sanctions whose methodologies
have since come into dispute. This article, appearing in Alternet.org,
casts the impact of sanctions into a balanced framework of analysis,
noting the expansion of the Oil-for-Food program to allow unlimited
production of oil and consequently more revenue available to
Hussein to rebuild the country's health and services infrastructure.
Yet, "Baghdad has continued to obstruct and undermine the aid
program."

"U.N.
Sanctions Rebel Resigns," BBC.com, Feb. 14, 2000
In February 2000, Hans von Sponeck followed in the footsteps
of his predecessor, Denis Halliday, and stepped down from his
post as coordinator of U.N.-administered humanitarian aid to
Iraq. In comments similar in tenor to Halliday's, Sponeck called
the sanctions "a true human tragedy" and urged that they end.

"The
Betrayal of Basra," Mother Jones magazine
Writer Chuck Sudetic traveled to Basra, one of Iraq's poorest
cities, to witness firsthand the effects of the sanctions upon
the lives of average Iraqi citizens. Poverty abounds in Basra,
though Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves. According
to Sudetic, "The devastating aspect of the sanctions is not
that they restrict what Iraq can import; it is that they keep
the country from accessing its cash." Although Iraq earned billions
in revenue under the Oil-for-Food program in 2000, only about
33 percentwas spent on food and 2 percent on medical supplies.

World
Health Organization's Iraq Newsletter
In January 2001, the United Nations' World Health Organization
(WHO) published the first edition of a monthly newsletter highlighting
the WHO's activities in Iraq. No subsequent editions seem to
have been published, however. In this edition, the WHO describes
its attempts to reduce the holds placed upon medical supplies
and health-related goods imported under the Oil-for-Food program.
All imports for Iraq have to be approved by the Security Council's
Sanctions Committee.

REPORTS AND STUDIES

"Morbidity
and Mortality Among Iraqi Children," Richard Garfield
In 1999, Richard Garfield of Columbia University authored a
comparative analysis of previous studies looking at mortality
and malnutrition figures in Iraq in the 1990s. Garfield arrives
at a mortality figure that is far more conservative than the
oft-quoted 1995 study published in the British medical journal
The Lancet, which claimed casualties of Iraqi children upwards
of half a million.

Excess
deaths (deaths in excess of the lowest annual rate [1990] during
this time period) among Iraqi children per year since the Gulf
war and sanctions*

Year

Baseline Death
Rate per
Thousand
Under Five-
Year-Olds

Period
Death
Rate per
Thousand
Under
Five-Year-
Olds

Excess
Deaths per
Thousand
Under
Five-Year-
Olds

Percent Rate
Increase
(excess
deaths
divided by
baseline
rates

Under Five-
Year-Olds
(in
Thousands

Est.
Excess
Deaths

1990

40

40

0

0

2,75

0

1990

40

46

6

15

2,756

1,102

1991

40

100

60

150

2,921

35,052

1992

39

70

31

79

3,096

19,195

1993

38

65.5

27.5

72

3,282

18,051

1994

37

73

36

97

3,479

25,049

1995

36

80.5

44.5

124

3,688

32,823

1996

35

87

52

149

3,909

40,654

1997

34

87

53

156

4,144

43,926

1998

33

87

54

164

4,393

11,861

TOTAL

227,713

*Citing information on maternal and child mortality rates collected
by UNICEF, Professor Richard Garfield estimates that between
1991 and 2002, the number of excess deaths in Iraq among children
under age 5 is 343,900 to 525,400.

Reprinted
from Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi Children From 1990
to 1998: Assessing the Impact of Economic Sanctions, by
Richard Garfield.Courtesy
of Fourth Freedom Forum

"Sanctions
and Childhood Mortality in Iraq," The Lancet, Mohamed M. Ali
and Iqbal H. Shah
This study, published in the May 2000 edition of the British
medical journal The Lancet, is a demographic study of child
mortality among tens of thousands of households in Iraq and
Iraqi Kurdistan. The authors found that the childhood mortality
rate in the northern Kurd region fell from 1994 to 1999, while
more than doubling in south-central Iraq during the same period.

"Iraq
Sanctions: Humanitarian Implications and Options for the Future,"
Global Policy Forum
In August 2002, the Global Policy Forum and 11 nongovernment
organizations published this report examining the U.N. sanctions
against Iraq that were imposed under U.N. Resolution 687. The
report, under New Policy Paper on Iraq Sanctions, delves into
the controversy surrounding the Oil-for-Food program, which,
it claims, "materially improved conditions in Iraq in contrast
to the early days of the sanctions ..." albeit "... failed to
resolve the humanitarian crisis, much less provide a long-term
solution for Iraq."

Statements
by Benan V. Sevan, Executive Director of the Office of the Iraq
Programme
On September 25, 2002, Benan V. Sevan briefed the U.N. Security
Council about the status of the Oil-for-Food program. Read the
text of his briefing to the Security Council and how the reduction
in Iraqi oil exports, from 2 million barrels per day in 2000
to under 1 million barrels per day recently, has resulted in
"a dire funding shortfall" for the disbursement of humanitarian
aid to Iraq. The Hussein regime is criticized for deliberately
suspending oil exports and failing to comply with U.N. recommendations
for the equitable allocation of oil revenue funds to various
humanitarian sectors.

UNICEF
Surveys
Between February and May of 1999, UNICEF carried out the first
surveys since 1991 of child and maternal mortality in Iraq.
The surveys included the autonomous Kurdish region in northern
Iraq. They were conducted with the assistance of both the Iraqi
government and Kurdish authorities. According to the surveys,
the mortality rate of children under 5 in the southern and central
parts of Iraq has doubled since the imposition of sanctions.

"Assessment
of the Food and Nutrition Situation: Iraq," United Nations'
Food and Agriculture Organization
This September 2000 report found stark regional differences
in child malnutrition rates between northern, central and southernIraq.
The U.N. Oil-for-Food program has, however, offset the effects
of drought and the diminished agricultural production by improving
food supply, with cereal imports expected to rise in 2000 and
2001 to presanctions levels. While the impact of the Oil-for-Food
program has been the most positive in northern Iraq, the report
calls for improvements in the implementation of the program
to ensure a swifter and wider distribution of humanitarian relief.

"Oil
for Food: Food Basket Adequacy Assessment Survey," World Food
Programme
This report was published in November 2001. It features the
results of a survey of 2,700 households in northern Iraq to
assess how well the Oil-for-Food program's food rations meet
the needs of the population. The report finds that while satisfaction
with the ration system is "high" in northern Iraq, the rations
under the program are "not sufficient" to fully meet the nutritional
needs of the population.